Lore question about Stormcast

[Moldek]

This is a call to lore enthusiasts!

I am designing a small narrative campaign based around stormcast vs nighthaunt (for now)

I have a good idea of the setting : secluded moutains somewhere in the realm of fire. The chaos armies have been mostly driven back and Sigmar’s main forces moved on. A small contingent of stormcast and freeguild were left there to eradicate the last traces of chaos. But the endless circle of war and reforging has radicalized the stormcast and they see chaos everywhere. They have turned into an inquisition of sorts, executng people for te slightest misstep. The repression has taken a heavy toll on the local population, and their dead have started to rise...  

So here’s my question (finally) :

How independant are stormcasts? I know some of them get pretty strange after a couple reforgings, but would they be allowed to keep coming back to a place they are oppressing? Wouldn’t the guys in azyr lock them up or give them different orders after a while? Or are the stormhosts able to pursue their goals as they see fit, without interference from a higher authority? Maybe it would be better for this story if some kind of magical interference kept them stuck without access to reforging, their numbers dwindling, slowly going mad? What’s your take on it? 

I’m sorry if the question isn’t completely clear, if you have any question or feedback about what I’ve written please say it

I’m also interested in any bit of lore that you feel is interesting / relevant for this setting

[Ironbreaker]

Killing civilians over small missteps is usually the jurisdiction of the Knights Excelsior. 

[Moldek]

4 minutes ago, Ironbreaker said:

Killing civilians over small missteps is usually the jurisdiction of the Knights Excelsior. 

Thanks, I’ve looked them up and they seem to fit the bill. I’m doing my own stormhost but they show that there’s a place in the lore for radical stormcast. I guess the stormhosts are pretty autonomous!

[Ironbreaker]

It also takes time for Stormcasts to be reforged and the queue for reforging is pretty long if there are many battles. From what I've read in the novels, I believe it's a one by one basis.  One Stormcast get's reforged at a time. If I'm right, you could say that due to the recent battles across the realms and  the fact that the sacrosanct chamber (the people who usually run the reforging, are out fighting now) the reforging process has gotten slower. I don't know the time span of your campaign in game, but you could just chalk it up to there not being enough time in the campaign for those that die to be reforged.

[Moldek]

Hmmm interesting. Yeah that’s good to know, I can picture a stormhost that has been mostly wiped out on the front lines, but because there’s such a delay to reforging the survivors are stuck in low numbers, trying to impose order on regions that have low strategic value in the big picture...

[Gaz Taylor]

Just moved this as you may get more replies in the Order Section.

9 hours ago, Moldek said:

This is a call to lore enthusiasts!

I am designing a small narrative campaign based around stormcast vs nighthaunt (for now)

I have a good idea of the setting : secluded moutains somewhere in the realm of fire. The chaos armies have been mostly driven back and Sigmar’s main forces moved on. A small contingent of stormcast and freeguild were left there to eradicate the last traces of chaos. But the endless circle of war and reforging has radicalized the stormcast and they see chaos everywhere. They have turned into an inquisition of sorts, executng people for te slightest misstep. The repression has taken a heavy toll on the local population, and their dead have started to rise...  

So here’s my question (finally) :

How independant are stormcasts? I know some of them get pretty strange after a couple reforgings, but would they be allowed to keep coming back to a place they are oppressing? Wouldn’t the guys in azyr lock them up or give them different orders after a while? Or are the stormhosts able to pursue their goals as they see fit, without interference from a higher authority? Maybe it would be better for this story if some kind of magical interference kept them stuck without access to reforging, their numbers dwindling, slowly going mad? What’s your take on it? 

I’m sorry if the question isn’t completely clear, if you have any question or feedback about what I’ve written please say it

I’m also interested in any bit of lore that you feel is interesting / relevant for this setting

I would second Knights Excelsior as the Stormhost you are after. But also you can come up with your own Stormhost so you have the freedom to do what you want to do. 

Personally, I think we will see a lot more of the Stormcast in the future loosing their individuality and becoming automation like. I think the story is setting itself up for the fall of these noble heroes who will risk anything. 

[Moldek]

@Gaz Taylor thank you. They definitely have been hinting at the potential downfall of stormcasts for a while. I’d expect it to affect the various stormhosts differently, unless they end up doing some kind of primaris-style reboot, with new re-reforged stormcast better protected againt degenerescence. 

I’ve started a thread on the narrative forum about my stormhost, with a short story that touches on this reforging problem, if you’re interested in checking it out!

[IneptusAstartes]

On 4/12/2019 at 11:18 AM, Gaz Taylor said:

I think the story is setting itself up for the fall of these noble heroes who will risk anything. 

Which I’m not looking forward to. I actually like a lot of the Stormcasts and  I don’t want AoS to slip into gratuitous grimdarkitude. Then again they could always have separate good and bad SC factions. And the circle is complete - 40k was once a 1:1 copy of WHFB, then AoS will become a 1:1 copy of 40k.

[Overread]

Thing is the setting technically already has fallen Stormcast type warriors, they are called Chaos Warriors. 

 

True true they are not fallen Stormcast, but they are inhumanly powerful, elite warriors of chaos and are fallen to darkways. In most ways Stormcast are the polar opposite of them and were crafted to be as such. I don't think GW could sensibly add a "fallen" stormcast army or faction easily because it would clash with Chaos quite directly. 

I think the only reason we've not seen this as heavily played is that thus far Chaos Warriors are in Slaves to Darkness and Everchosen - both forces (likely combined) that have yet to get a big focus with their own Battletome. Personally I'd say Fallen Stormcast should remain in the lore of the game; perhaps as a unit of fallen warriors within the SC army; or (if they REALLY fall) a unit of chaos. Rather than allowing them to become a whole army unto their own. 

[Moldek]

3 hours ago, Overread said:

Thing is the setting technically already has fallen Stormcast type warriors, they are called Chaos Warriors. 

 

True true they are not fallen Stormcast, but they are inhumanly powerful, elite warriors of chaos and are fallen to darkways. In most ways Stormcast are the polar opposite of them and were crafted to be as such. I don't think GW could sensibly add a "fallen" stormcast army or faction easily because it would clash with Chaos quite directly. 

I think the only reason we've not seen this as heavily played is that thus far Chaos Warriors are in Slaves to Darkness and Everchosen - both forces (likely combined) that have yet to get a big focus with their own Battletome. Personally I'd say Fallen Stormcast should remain in the lore of the game; perhaps as a unit of fallen warriors within the SC army; or (if they REALLY fall) a unit of chaos. Rather than allowing them to become a whole army unto their own. 

Yeah I wouldn’t expect anything like a corrupt stormcast faction, but maybe something akin to the legion of the damned in 40k - a rogue stormhost that pops out of nowhere and kills everyone in pursuit of a supreme goal. Maybe just some optional rules, maybe a special unit... I don’t know what would happen to stormcast who actually reject Sigmar since he’s the one reforging them and they’re actually imbued with his very essence.

But it could be interesting to see how fallen stormcast embody Sigmar’s darker side. Not the heavenly king that builds cities and protects free people, but the eternal being who sees the lives of mortals as a small cost in his war against the dark gods.

[Dr Ben]

Sounds like you've got a great setting pretty well formed already to me. It might not part of the main lore but I don't see why you couldn't invent your own fallen/borderline stormcast. If it's only a small tabletop sized army there is no reason this should intersect with the main narrative unless you wanted it to.

Having bits of your soul repeatedly removed sure sounds like a recipe for madness to me. If say, tzeentch was trying to corrupt a small group of demoralised stormcast, I'm sure they could find many ways to stop news getting back to azyr. Of course if they are delusional and reporting back to Sigmar themselves, then Sigmar wouldn't know there wasn't tons of chaos running around. Often when you challenge delusional beliefs people don't take too well to it.... This kind of thing could form a narrative campaign of its own.

It might be interesting to look at specific neurological disorders or brain injuries/stroke syndromes (frontal lobes especially) and think about how that deficit might affect a stormcast. Do they lack inhibitions, the ability to recognise emotions or  have short term memory loss? Maybe reforging has made them kind of autistic with the various social and communication difficulties and repetitive behaviours. If running with the paranoid delusion idea then have a quick read about the abberrant salience hypothesis. Playing these out could help fill in some of the details and explain why they are the kind of mad they are.

[Moldek]

@Dr Ben those are some great ideas! Looking at mental disorders could be a very useful source of information, I’ll be sure to dig around. 

I agree that the ability to have your own small setting separate from the main plot is one of the great things about AoS. If you want to check out the thread I started on the narrative forum, I wrote a short story exploring the ideas discussed here. TL;DR is that some of the stormcast are starting to see the humanity loss from reforging as a blessing instead of a curse. 

The idea that they would report their delusional version of what is going on to azyr is really good, I think I’ll include it in the plot.

[Lior'Lec]

On 4/15/2019 at 2:41 AM, Overread said:

Thing is the setting technically already has fallen Stormcast type warriors, they are called Chaos Warriors. 

 

True true they are not fallen Stormcast, but they are inhumanly powerful, elite warriors of chaos and are fallen to darkways. In most ways Stormcast are the polar opposite of them and were crafted to be as such. I don't think GW could sensibly add a "fallen" stormcast army or faction easily because it would clash with Chaos quite directly. 

I think the only reason we've not seen this as heavily played is that thus far Chaos Warriors are in Slaves to Darkness and Everchosen - both forces (likely combined) that have yet to get a big focus with their own Battletome. Personally I'd say Fallen Stormcast should remain in the lore of the game; perhaps as a unit of fallen warriors within the SC army; or (if they REALLY fall) a unit of chaos. Rather than allowing them to become a whole army unto their own. 

     Hmm, but why would they necessarily have to fall to chaos? Yes a special unit or two of Chaos Corrupted Stormcast would be ok. But why not have a SMALL mini group of Stormcast who’ve been taken by Nagash and are now twisted to serve him for eternity? What about this: the Stormcast are not soldiers, they are weapons. The Stormcast themselves know this, and what happens when that weapon’s been broken and repaired so many times it starts seeing everything as a war? We already know some souls break during the reforging process and are hunted down (lightning giest I believe?) why shouldn’t that be a DESTRUCTION unit “living” to simply strike out at whatever is at hand?

     I would not be opposed to SMALL groups of ChaosCasts, but would prefer some special FallenCasts which serve death and destruction and/or nifty rules to using the standard kits in those roles. Minimum unit sizes only with a maximum of 1 unit per type, 2 for (formerly) battleline units. No heroes, possibly no mounted units. And for Sigmar’s Sake NO FULL FACTIONS! Supplemental forces ONLY. If GW makes full on CSM equivalents of the Stormcast  and disregards the other GAs I’ll melt all my plastic down and be done with them for another 20+ years.